File name filtering + recursion

[mbrijun]

Hi, I am trying to add metadata to files that match a specific pattern "*_iOS.jpg" and to do that recursively in a directory tree. Is there a way to do that? "-r" wants to receive a directory name, not a filename wildcard. Do I have to combine this with something like "find" and process each discovered file individually?

[StarGeek]

Use the -if option.  For example
exiftool -r -if '$Filename=~/_iOS\.jpg/i' -Description=Stuff /path/to/files/

It's best not to use something like find and loop over each file.  This is Common Mistake #3.  This means that exiftool will have to be run separately for each file and this will take significantly longer because its biggest performance hit is the startup time.

Another option would be to use find to save all the file names into a temp text file and use the -@ (Argfile) option.  For example
find /path/to/search/ -name *_iOS.jpg >temp.txt
exiftool -@ temp.txt -Description=Stuff
Thinking about it, if it's a lot of files then this might be a bit quicker than the -if option.

You didn't mention your OS but I was guessing Mac because of the iOS pattern and the mention of find.  If you're using Windows CMD, then swap Single/Double quotes.

[mbrijun]

@StarGeek - an excellent, informative answer. Thank you!